Joy Before the Message with Antwan Eady & Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey

[00:00:00] It was just this thing of a picture books following me all of my life without me realizing that it was something I wanted to do now. Love movies, video games, reading books, stories and we wanted to be a part of these stories. What's good?

[00:00:15] I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guests are Antwan Eady and Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey. The trio authored and illustrated the children's picture book, The Last Stand.

[00:00:35] It's a book that honors the legacy and sacrifices of black farmers by focusing on the joy found in community. I don't want people to take on the burden of learning about our history in the way that I did because it shut me down.

[00:00:53] Learning about the truth was painful for me and I didn't want others to experience that pain. We like stories that show and don't tell, like you read it and you have that emotional connection and you walk away with an impression that you're not sure how you arrived at

[00:01:07] that. That's a magical story. Antwan, Jarrett and Jerome have always been drawn to stories for children, how they got out of their own way and made sure to write books they enjoy. Plus, while there was a 20-year gap between the Pumphrey Brothers' first and second picture

[00:01:24] book and how the publishing industry has changed in those two decades. And the three layers Antwan, Jarrett and Jerome make sure are present in their stories so that everyone can get something out of them no matter where or what age they are in life.

[00:01:39] That and more is next when Black and Published continues. I got everybody. I'm so excited. All right, I don't know if you are familiar with Black and Published but the first question for everyone is always when did you know that you were a writer and for the illustrators

[00:02:02] when did you know that you were an illustrator? So this is Antwan Eadie diving into it. I knew I was a writer in the fourth grade when my teacher stuck my yoyo at the time

[00:02:13] yoyos were banned or they just became banned and I was still used to taking it to school and I wrote a letter to my teacher explaining how and why I needed that yoyo and how much it meant to me.

[00:02:24] And pretty much I was able to get my yoyo back but she called my mom and she told my mom she had never read a letter like that before from a student. And I did something about that with her calling my mom to say there's something about his

[00:02:36] writing, something in there that's special. I knew then that there was something magical with words in the ways in which we could use them. I followed Jerome's lead when it comes to illustrating.

[00:02:46] He's certainly the art director so to speak of our duo and we've been making things all our lives together books of one sort or another and traditionally I would lead on the writing and Jerome would support the writing and then lead on the illustrations and I would

[00:03:05] help with the compositions or the direction and so when I, when we made our first author illustrator book, The Old Truck, that's when I really knew that I wanted to have my hands in the art because the visuals of telling a story it's such a key part particularly

[00:03:22] in picture books of telling a part of the story and supporting the text but also saying what's not said in the text and it makes a fuller story, a more layered story and following Jerome's lead.

[00:03:36] I would say when we made The Old Truck that's when I really decided I wanted to be a real contributor when it comes to the illustrations. Got it. Yeah, so it's interesting to hear Jared's perspective on that.

[00:03:48] I would say for me as Jared said we've been creating things since we were really young together so even in elementary school, Jared would write stories and I would draw the pictures for them and I always thought even if it was crazy to think

[00:04:05] this at the time but I always thought what we were doing could be published. I thought, oh, this comic book could be published. And so I always considered myself an illustrator even going back to when we were, I was 15 and Jared was 17.

[00:04:19] We had our first idea to pitch a book for publication. This book was called Creepy Things Are Scaring Me and I drew illustrations for the whole dummy book and this was back when you could then put that in the mail and send it off to a publisher.

[00:04:35] And I considered that I was illustrating it then at the time that got published without our illustrations, but it was still a goal and something that I was working towards. So then knowing from such a young age that you all wanted to write, wanted

[00:04:49] to tell stories through words and illustrations, how did that carry you through your journey to actually doing it now? Let me start with Antoine. It carried me because it was more of a safe space than anything.

[00:05:01] I didn't know anything about publication and the second grade was when I said I wanted to be a poet and that was because my cousin playfully recited Dr. Maya Angelou's And Still I Rise and I didn't have the words for it then,

[00:05:12] but I just knew that there was a flow to that. There was a cadence and what we call non-musicality to it that I just knew it didn't sound like regular words like prose. And for me, it was just my way of voicing without having to actually

[00:05:24] speak because I'm the youngest of six and I grew up in a household of like rambunctious kids and I was kind of shy and quiet and I still am, even though people don't believe that.

[00:05:34] But so poetry was my way of just being able to get out my thoughts and get out who I was. So for me before publication is just more safety. It was having that outlet. And then it carried me until 2019 when I actually pursued

[00:05:51] traditional publication, a black young author around the same age as I am, and it turned like this far best dream into an attainable goal. Jerry. Yeah, for us, I always go back to our dad. He was a great storyteller. He didn't write.

[00:06:06] He's not a writer, but he would tell oral stories that were usually funny. And it was always something that inspired me, something I wanted to be able to do. And so that's one part. Second part is we also, we didn't have a family, quite as big as

[00:06:22] Antoine's, but they were four brothers and house. And we had wild imaginations. We were always playing games of one sort or another. And it was a lot of make believe a lot of creating worlds from nothing just to keep ourselves busy.

[00:06:36] And it feels like our childhood, a lot of it was figuring out how best to engage in these stories that we wanted to create love movies, video games, reading books, stories. And so figuring out how to do that one way or another.

[00:06:53] And so when we were teenagers, a little bit older, drum, he's the one that had the idea that we should try to get a book published. And he came home with a big stack of books on how to do just that.

[00:07:03] We followed the directions and then it happened. Now you think particularly when you're young like that, you think you put out a picture book, you're going to be rich and famous. And that just didn't happen. They weren't known was biting at the time.

[00:07:17] So we ended up having good jobs and pursue other goals and other dreams. And it would be 20 years before we got back to books. And that's when the old truck came out 20 years, 20 years or so later back in 2020.

[00:07:30] And it took a lot of perseverance, a lot of hard work. It's not like we were working on books that whole time. We were doing other things. But always in the back of my mind was this early goal of being an author and making books and telling stories.

[00:07:44] And so, yeah, it took a lot of perseverance to come back to it. But we did it. Yeah, Jared expressed that beautifully, but that is the story. Whoa. So, Antoine, you said it's always been a goal, but you didn't see it manifested till 2019.

[00:08:04] Jared and Jerome, you say you did a book in 2000. And then it was, yeah, it was released back. When was that exactly? 2003 US publication date. When 2003 is publication. Yeah, it's still in the next one didn't come out. The old truck didn't come out till 2020. That's right.

[00:08:22] Before I get to my publishing questions, I want to ask, was it always children's books that you were inspired and always wanted to write for the picture book age? For us, it was. I mean, we started out with picture books.

[00:08:35] I don't know about Antoine, but for us, we started with picture books. That's not all we want to make, but it's we were reading picture books. So for me, it was the opposite.

[00:08:43] I was writing like poetry and I figured I'd be like an adult poet or spoken word. That was again, just not thinking about publication, but just for myself. And then I also was trying my hand at screenplays.

[00:08:53] So I started my hand at that, but I was also majoring in Prevac Medicine at the time. But funny enough, in 2007, I wrote my first picture book as a class assignment. And it was called The Big, Big Book of Busy Busy Bees.

[00:09:06] And I found a lot of joy in that because I made like a literal big book. And I did the illustrations. I can't draw at all, but I did it. And it was just something I would read around the area for the Boys and Girls

[00:09:15] Club or realize that it brought me a lot of joy. But it wasn't until again, 2019 when I met his name is Nana Kwame, author of Friday Black, this beautiful adult short story collection. I met him.

[00:09:28] And then the next day, I think I went to an author who was presenting her picture book and he was presenting a picture book with a black main character and author herself is not black. But I remember sitting there and saying, I can do this because there was

[00:09:43] a moment in there where there's a line she wrote that I said, if this has came from somebody black, I think we would have said it like this. And I was like, I can do this. And all throughout these years at this point, my friends from

[00:09:55] undergrad were all like, not all, but they were starting to have kids and might have 13 nephews and nieces. So they were like, I was always buying picture books for everyone. So it kind of found me or I caught up with it throughout this journey.

[00:10:07] Like, hey, you want to write picture books. And the other side of that is that my mom, when I was younger for a little while, she was a housekeeper. And when picture books went unclaimed, like when they were

[00:10:17] buying picture books in rooms and no one would claim them, she would bring those picture books home to me because I didn't grow up. We didn't grow up near a bookstore. When there's library was about 10 miles away.

[00:10:27] So I didn't have access to a lot of books from the dirt roads of South Carolina. Low country. Yeah, the low country. So my part of the low country is like very rural. And so yeah, but like I said, it was just this thing of picture books

[00:10:41] following me all of my life without me realizing that it was something I wanted to do now. I thought I would do it when I became a grandparent. So I want to talk about publishing. And I had another author on Erica Simone Turnipsey who previously

[00:10:55] wrote novels and then wrote a picture book that was released last year. She was my first picture book author. I don't have many children's authors on, but she was talking about how different it was navigating the publishing industry for young

[00:11:08] readers and children because you're marketing to their parents or librarians or to schools. And the only other authors I've had on they did a middle grade book. So that's still like that. Tween age, so still marketing toward parents and schools and libraries. Not so much directly to children.

[00:11:25] So how did you all find the industry? And I'm especially interested to hear from you all Jared and Jerome with that 20 year gap between your books. The publishing world for us, it's completely changed. It's night and day compared to what it was 20 years ago.

[00:11:40] Just to give you an example, Jerome, do you have creepy things around? I heard done. Anyway, this book right here. This was our first book. OK, a lady named Roseanne Litzinger did the illustrations. Jerome did the illustrations for this book, but the publisher wanted

[00:11:57] to go with a different illustrator and she illustrated the characters to look like her and her family, which is fine. Illustrators do that. I don't think this would happen today if you had two black authors write a book.

[00:12:10] And now the thing is this story, it's not about quote unquote being black. It's just about being afraid of the dark. It's a little boy who's afraid of the dark. Now I was afraid of the dark when I was growing up. Jerome was afraid of the dark.

[00:12:22] Little black boys get afraid of the dark. Why can't it be a black character? My point is simply this. It's changed today. If we wrote this book, we'd probably get the illustrated or they find someone who had a similar worldview to us or similar experience to us.

[00:12:36] And they would illustrate the book. I feel like getting in might be a little more challenging these days. It used to be you could just drop a book in the mail and send it to a publisher. Now there's more gatekeeping.

[00:12:50] There's more if you want to get in, you got to go through all these hoops, get an agent and agents got to send it out and all this. But I will say diversity in children's books in particular has improved. They've got a long way to go.

[00:13:03] But we feel like we got really lucky with our book. We sent it to a publisher. They got our story. They wanted it. Several of them wanted it. Antoine, the last stand that book going out and everyone finding over it and wanting it.

[00:13:16] It's just a different world, so to speak, compared to 20 years ago. I think that's a very important aspect that Jared covered. Another one that I will say that I think is just true to us as artists is our

[00:13:29] books certainly can go to the youngest readers and parents can. The picture books parents can read to even their children that can't read yet. But the stories also have layers that I think adult readers will appreciate

[00:13:42] and get more out of and in between readers like a grade school readers can read them and pick up layers that maybe younger ones won't. So I think it's got we've got that appeal in terms of marketing or being

[00:13:55] appropriate for an audience is it's really a wide audience at this type of storytelling is appropriate for Antoine. So yeah, I entered in 2019. Now what I do, I had to get out of my own way. There were moments where I tried to have that commercial appeal.

[00:14:09] I tried to create like a character driven series. You have the Pete the cats and you have these other books where they have so much longevity. And initially I came in and say, I want to create a character like that

[00:14:19] that I could just take on so many different adventures. But once I one was rejected by over 100 and something agents. And then when the book that actually got me multiple agent offers was then rejected by every publisher, I just kept writing kept going.

[00:14:33] I got out of my own way by first creating a story that I knew I would enjoy because every time I give the pitch book, I read those picture books first. And as I found a lot of joy in those and I knew the kind of story

[00:14:45] that I gravitated towards. So I would do that first. And then sometimes I would go back and add the layers to it. For example, in the last stand, all of those colors that are mentioned in there weren't in there initially.

[00:14:57] It was with a friend who the only person that read it, the early draft of it. He said, you have a pattern here. Why not just go ahead and introduce these other colors? And that way that can be introduced into the curriculum in school.

[00:15:09] And with my first book, Nigel and the Moon, it was a similar thing where I wanted to talk about careers about a young boy who's afraid to tell the world his dreams. So he shared them with the moon at night. And I wanted to be able to.

[00:15:20] I thought about career weekend schools, but like Jerome touched on too. There's so many layers to these stories so that and I do that intentionally so that we can all take away something from it wherever we are. I love that my books meet readers wherever they are

[00:15:33] or whatever part of the journey they're on. And I want the young readers, the youngest of readers to revisit my story decades from now and have those moments up. Oh, I get it. I get it. I didn't get it then, but I get it now.

[00:15:46] And I just love doing that. So I navigate the space by first going through what I love, what I enjoy, because I'm a human being and I think that my feelings and my emotions and my thoughts aren't necessarily an isolated experience.

[00:16:00] So I try to use that as a human experience to say, if I enjoy these things, someone else out there surely enjoys this too. And not just one person now, but if it is one person, how can I make that marketable for a broader audience?

[00:16:15] What I'm hearing from the three of you through your very journeys in the industry is that it's the joy and the love that I think that you all have, not only for writing, but writing specifically for children and giving other children the same kind of feelings.

[00:16:33] I guess you had as children as adults now that keeps you going in an industry that can be very ruthless in some ways when it comes to whose stories are allowed to be told and when and by who and where. Is that accurate? Yeah, I think so.

[00:16:53] OK, so then I want to get to the book. And normally at this time I would have an author read from it. But since it's a picture book, instead of you reading the book, I want you to read the author's note because I want to have a conversation.

[00:17:06] Yes, I want you to read the author's note. I want to have a conversation. My audience is adults, a lot of them probably have children I don't want to assume. But we're talking directly to parents right now who you want to go by this book.

[00:17:20] So I want you to read the author's note and I want to have a conversation about the book starting from the author's note. Well, before we get to the reading, here's a little bit about The Last Stand.

[00:17:31] It's a picture book written by Antoine Edie and illustrated by Jared and Jerome Pumphrey. It tells the story of black farmers in South Carolina's low country focusing on a grandfather and grandson who serve their community the best way they know how.

[00:17:46] Through food in an effort to hold on to the legacy of the land, even as so many other farmer families like theirs have had to let them go. Here's Antoine. All right, you really got me on this one. OK, well, first I'll read the first sentence,

[00:18:02] the opening lines from The Last Stand, illustrated by the amazing duo Jared and Jerome Pumphrey. And it begins, Papa has The Last Stand the year before five. Author's note here in this book, I've taken heartbreak and turned it into a story about

[00:18:19] a boy and his grandfather who now have The Last Stand at a farmer's market in a community that can't afford to lose it. I've taken the pain from our world to create beauty and another in a world where one stand ends and another begins.

[00:18:34] A little over a century ago, black farmers made up 14 percent of farmers in America. Today, that number is less than 2 percent. There are reasons for this loss. For years, the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA, discriminated against

[00:18:50] black farmers, denying them loans or not giving them their fair share of assistance. In the late 1990s, black farmers filed class action lawsuits against the USDA. Almost two years later, the combined lawsuits were settled and became the largest civil rights settlement in history at the time.

[00:19:08] But for many farming families, the damage that had been done was beyond repair. This book is a love letter. It's a love letter for Garnett, South Carolina, my hometown, where peanuts, corn and watermelon grew, where black farmers raked,

[00:19:24] tilled and appreciated land in places where our homes were built and our families were raised. It's for the fruit man who grew sugar king and sold it on the side of the road or at a local convenience store.

[00:19:37] It's for a friend who upon graduated from high school, set off to farm with his grandfather, is for a high school teacher who taught us the way of the land through agriculture classes. It's for farmers across our nation, especially those who went over and beyond

[00:19:53] in unprecedented times when we needed them the most. Above all, this book is for those living in food apartheid where access to fresh and affordable groceries is an ever present struggle. As much as this book is a love letter,

[00:20:07] it's an apology to those who fought and to those who are fighting from lands made habitable by indigenous communities being taken from them to the trauma of enslavement and sharecropping from lands made habitable by Gulligichi communities being taken from them to to the discrimination

[00:20:25] farmers of color and with my farmer's face through creating this story. I'm reminded that land is complex as is our relationship with it, but land is love too. And if we are to bring beauty back to our world,

[00:20:39] we must first reckon with the truth as complicated as it may be. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. So the reason I asked you to start with the office note is that because this season on the podcast, I've been really intentional about making sure

[00:20:58] that my guests and I kind of talk about the issues of the moment and very specifically those being book bands and the types of stories that are banned are generally those featuring black characters for characters of color and then also featuring themes of activism and protest,

[00:21:17] as well as the marginalization of the LGBTQ plus community. And so your book is right in that battlefield. I know Antoine, you're in Savannah in Georgia. I'm in Jacksonville, Florida. Jerome, I think you're in Clearwater recently relocated to Georgetown, Texas.

[00:21:36] So you're in Texas and then Jared, you're also in Texas as well. So we're all in the deep South in these states where governments are waging war against books and really against children being able to learn and have access to knowledge in many different ways.

[00:21:54] And so even though you're a book, the text of it is about the joy of family and of community and of connection and attachment to the land. The story that's underneath it and that you address a bit in the office note is one of pain.

[00:22:12] How did you or why did you want to turn that heartbreak into one of remembrance and reminding folks that there is still joy? And I'll start with Antoine. Yeah, that's just that's at the core of who I am is taking

[00:22:29] everything filters through us grief, heartache, everything that we experience in life. Those joyous moments are still filtered through grief when if we've lost someone that we love, I don't want people to take on the burden of learning

[00:22:45] about our history in the way that I did because it shut me down. Learning about the truth was painful for me and I didn't want others to experience that pain. Funny enough, I did not want to write this office note. I fought against it.

[00:23:01] I met with my editor, Bril Timoskiewicz, and I told her I said, when people close this book, I don't want them to take on the pain. That's the reason why I wrote it. I don't want to then pass on that pain to other people.

[00:23:16] People should have an understanding of what black farmers in particular have gone through in America because people will see this and think, oh, this is a story about black farmers in the US days of discrimination. Black farmers aren't necessarily in the narrative when we talk about farming

[00:23:30] documentaries, when we see films, when we see other parts of literature. Black farmers are usually left out of that narrative. Every day I try to wake up and I try to choose happiness and I try to bring joy

[00:23:41] to the world and I definitely try to do that with literature. That's my way of filtering my thoughts and my emotions is through writing it. I thought about the farmers that I grew up with. It was also my way of redeeming myself because I mentioned author's note

[00:23:55] that I had a friend who wanted to farm with his grandfather. Coming from my area, I'm originally from South Carolina. Coming from my area, there was only like maybe three or four black boys from my

[00:24:06] school who had the opportunity to go to college and all of us were friends. And this one friend was one of the few that could get to college. And I was like, dude, you cannot go far. We barely make it out of here.

[00:24:18] I literally did not understand it until fast for all of these years later when I started working on this story, I thought about him and I sit in him like early sketches that Jared and Jerome they were sent to our editor.

[00:24:28] I will always send him like sneak peeks. But it was my way of redeeming myself because imagine if he had listened to me. Now he's one of the most prominent farmers in South Carolina, a supplier for our hometown, but also other areas throughout South Carolina.

[00:24:40] His grandfather is no longer here. I just wanted to leave the readers with joy and I wanted to allow it to filter through me because the history of it is hard. And I wanted to reestablish our connection with land in a beautiful way

[00:24:52] without having to go back through the negative stuff. I think our jobs as the illustrators was to help Antoine tell this story in a sort of nuanced and layered way so that he could convey all that meaning,

[00:25:08] all that depth that he wanted in his story without getting trapped in this idea. Message books aren't my favorite kind of books. This is a beautiful story about a boy and his grandfather and what they do on their farm and in their community.

[00:25:26] And yes, there is a deeper story here. And I'm actually happy Antoine wrote his authors note because readers can experience the story and they might get one idea. And then they read that author's note and then experience the story again.

[00:25:41] And they see all the layers and all the nuance that maybe they just glossed over the first time. I imagine if Antoine had tried to bake all of that into his story, it would have been it would have hit differently.

[00:25:54] And I don't know that it would have been the type of story any of us wanted to put out in the world. So I think he captured the joy and also some of the pain and the sadness

[00:26:04] that is just inherent in this story and also with our help and the illustrations. I hope some of the depth there. And can I just add really quick? That was the beauty of what just a little bit of the beauty that Jared and Jerome brought to the story.

[00:26:19] I loved everything that they did, every choice, every decision they made with the background, because we often say in publishing that there are three stories, there's the text, the textual story. Then there is that visual storytelling with the illustrations.

[00:26:33] And then there's that other story when the two come together in this marriage with text and visuals. And like Jared said, I did not want this to be a message book. But with the clothes for business signs and the other signs that you'll

[00:26:48] see in the background without giving spoilers away, all of that was like perfect for me because that moment when granddad, I know the reason why I put that in the story and it's because it was an actual march in Washington that black farmers did. Right?

[00:27:02] So they actually even had their tractors going down there. And I see granddad as having been a part of that. The true story. And but again, I didn't want to add that there. I just wanted to tell a beautiful story to humanize black farmers to show

[00:27:17] people that there's an actual human experience that defies or isn't limited to the color of skin. I want every farmer to be able to see this and see their families in it, too. I want others to be able to see their communities in it, even if it's not

[00:27:33] identical to what they see in the story, because this is just a story about a granddad, his grandson and a beautiful community that they look after. Jerome. Yeah, I was going to say that Antoine made it very easy for us with

[00:27:47] the text that we got to just add a visual voice to it without it being a book that hits you over the head with a message, because that sometimes we're all saying we don't like message books, quote unquote.

[00:28:00] But I think we're saying we like stories that show and don't tell. Like you read it and you have that emotional connection and you walk away with an impression that you're not sure how you arrived at that. That's what that's a magical story.

[00:28:13] And I feel like we were able to do that because of the way that he tells this smaller story on a bigger backdrop, sort of the way that we experience stories in real life.

[00:28:22] So I thought it was very easy for Jared and I to walk in and bring this to life visually. It was its own experience. We haven't done anything like this before. So this book, I feel like, gives to children with the text by Natalie

[00:28:41] Bezill, Queen Sugar, most notably the book and the show, as well as her last book, We Are Each Other's Harvest is doing for adults about telling the stories of the black farming community. I also am remembering there was an episode on the 1619 podcast about black

[00:29:00] farmers that talks about the lawsuits and how long the funding was delayed. That was just absolutely heartbreaking for those sugar cane farmers down in Louisiana. And you're doing that for children. And the recurring image from the sign is the word support.

[00:29:18] With the state of black farming in America today, do you feel like there can be a resurgence of interest in that area at all? Oh, I'll take that. Thank you. One, you have no idea. I'm fighting back tears right now because I haven't had an opportunity

[00:29:37] to talk about that, but even with Queen Sugar in my connection to Queen Sugar and just all of that. Thank you so much for that. I think there can be a resurgence and I think it's happening. I think it's happening. It is slow, but we have Instagram now.

[00:29:52] I follow so many black farmers on Instagram right now. And it's the most beautiful thing to see. I go out there on Saturdays to the farmers market here in Savannah, Georgia. I show a few of the farmers their early sketches too.

[00:30:04] Some of them have never seen black farmers in books at all. But then they were introduced to me too, like their daughters who are like fourth and fifth generation farmers because each of the farmers here, they all have their sons and daughters out there too.

[00:30:16] This is my way because I'm working on a young adult novel, too, that it also ties into land and reestablishing our relationship with it or exploring our relationship with land. This is my contribution to children's literature was to bring the Queen

[00:30:31] sugars, the we are each other's harvest to bring all of that down so that I can start early on with young ones to know that it's aspirational to say that we want to be farmers is just as aspirational as saying like, I want to be a doctor.

[00:30:45] I want to be a lawyer because we need our farmers. So I think it may not be an overnight thing that we see, but slowly is happening because so many of us without knowing it, we don't want to be farmers or we don't want to do much that's

[00:30:58] involving land because we think of it with enslavement or sharecropping or just a lot of labor. But like I said in authors, no, I'm showing people that land is loved too. And it's something I agree with just of Gala Gechi descent where

[00:31:12] we lived off the land and the land we've always seen the beauty of it because we had our gardens, we had our farms, we had we crabbed and we fished and shrimped so people without that experience, I can understand if their

[00:31:24] only relationship with land was through stories of enslavement. Then it's kind of like, well, why do I want to be out there? Why? But I had that balance because I saw the beauty of it all.

[00:31:34] Yeah, as long as people like Antoine and others keep putting it out there in the world, I think it's not done. It absolutely can be resuscitated. And I feel like those are a remarkable thing. I know we're talking about the last thing, but we had a similar

[00:31:52] experience with The Old Truck. In that book, we put a female farmer, this little girl, her family's black. We weren't trying to make any kind of statement with this book, right? We just wrote it. Jerome had just had a daughter.

[00:32:06] She was the first daughter in a couple of generations in our family. And we modeled the family after our family. Our grandmother had a farm. She worked hard picking cotton, saved up all her money to buy this farm.

[00:32:16] And we were always told growing up whatever we do, that farm standing family. And so we put this out there, though, and people remark on it. It's like they were blown away by this simple fact that this farmer was a black woman.

[00:32:31] And that's because every farmer in every other children book they've ever seen looks a certain way. And so now you've got the last stand. You've got a father and a grandson and black farmers here. We just keep putting it out there because it's a thing.

[00:32:47] And the more people see it, I think the more people will embrace it and continue to support it. And yeah, for sure, it can come back. It can be great because it is. It was.

[00:33:02] OK. And I would add that I think it is our hope just in creating art that we can have some influence in that way upon a culture or the societies that we can help reveal it to itself. Do you all have any goals for this book?

[00:33:20] I want to ask specifically, what do you think are the possibilities for your book as far as reaching young readers? But I feel like that's too big of a question. But I'm going to throw both of those out there and see which one you gravitate towards.

[00:33:34] The goal for me would just be years from now, decades from now for generations to aspire to be a farmer because of this book. That would wholeheartedly be everything to me. I don't think I necessarily missed a moment, but I'm up there in age now and I

[00:33:49] can't be out there on the farm. No joking. He missed that. But this is my way of saying because right now I don't have a fruit man who used to drive around our area to make sure to see who needed what.

[00:34:06] We no longer have that in my actual hometown. So this is my way of saying I didn't always appreciate it in that sense. Enough for me to say I want to be a farmer. So this is me again redeeming myself and trying to make up for it

[00:34:19] and hopefully inspiring others because we often say it's difficult for us to become what we've yet to see as possible when we talk about representation. And I hate that now representation has been diluted a little bit where everybody

[00:34:31] said, oh, representation matters. No, it changed my life because had I not met Nana Kwame in 2019, I don't know that I would have been an author right now. So little ones can see a black farmer if they can see a young black boy.

[00:34:45] If they can see we have Ms. Armeen in the back, that would be my goal is just for us in some way to some degree, reestablish our relationship with land, be it farming, be it being a geologist, just opening up the door for us to say something

[00:35:01] about this land is unique, something about it is beautiful. What can I do to preserve it? Yeah, I agree. I think that is the goal. I know when I was a kid, I wanted to be a farmer and somewhere I lost that.

[00:35:14] Like you look like somewhere I lost it. And now I do love it. I do love being in the outdoors, experiencing the land and natural resources and preserving those resources and doing everything we can for conservation. But farming is its own sort of subset of that.

[00:35:32] And it would be great if young kids could see this book and then they were inspired to have a farm and be a farmer like that. That is so noble. Funny thing, we were making the art of this book. I started gardening. I started growing peppers.

[00:35:49] It's like getting your hands dirty, getting out. I won't spoil your surprise, but Drums got surprised too. You know, moving to a farm. Yeah, that's what we moved to in Georgetown, Texas as a farm. We bought a farm property out here.

[00:36:03] It's not a commercial farm, but at least my kids will be reintroduced to nature. We can have the types of animals. It's funny. I was just talking to my aunt who used to take summer trips to our great grandmother's house, which is the famous farm from the

[00:36:19] old truck and she was talking about seeing her grandmother kill the chickens or ring the chicken's neck before dinner. And it was like honestly, it was traumatizing for her. But now we're two generations from that.

[00:36:33] And I think it's a cool opportunity I have to reintroduce myself to nature and my kids, so even I was influenced by working on this project. Yeah, I just say without saying that seeing Jared and Jerome's book, the old truck, I'm pretty sure without the old truck,

[00:36:51] the last stand wouldn't have been possible because seeing the old truck reminded me so much of my hometown and my home and then having a truck in my yard in our yard that my dad was like, that is your truck, which is why the truck

[00:37:04] in the last stand is blue because the truck in my yard was blue. But something about that was just beautiful. And I said, so I can add my experiences into because I didn't know Jared and Jerome,

[00:37:18] but I saw myself in that story and I was able to say, OK, so I can do this type of storytelling and so others can look at stories like this and either say, like, feel influenced and say, I want to be a farmer.

[00:37:31] Or if it inspires someone to tell their own unique stories, then I think that's a beautiful thing because again, it goes back to the human experience. It's these invisible threads that connect us all. And that's what the old truck did for me without knowing the creators.

[00:37:44] So I have to ask Jared and Jerome. Is the old farm still in the family? Oh, absolutely. The land is the land. Yes. Which is what the quest was. It was like never sell that land because she had worked so hard

[00:37:59] to be able to own land as a black woman from her time. And so that is that has been honored that they still own the land. It belongs to a lot of family members at this point. I just you mentioned it twice.

[00:38:12] OK, I got to ask the land and the family. All right. So I want to move to a speed round in a game with you guys before I let you go for the afternoon. What is your favorite book? Picture book wise, the day you began.

[00:38:27] Jacqueline Woodson and where the wild things are by Marie Sendak. I will say Snowy Day as a Jack Keats. That book we actually pay tribute to that book in the old truck. The bedroom scene there is inspired by Peter's bedroom from the snowy day.

[00:38:44] Who is your favorite author? Any genre, any age level? Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds. Recently it's been Jason Reynolds. I'm going to say Aaron and Trada Kelly. What's a children's book or children's book off there? You think more people should know about?

[00:38:59] Oh, easy for me is the Winsome Bingham. She's the author of Soulful Sunday. She's the author of The Walk and she has a few more coming out. She's a brilliant person and I haven't met another writer like her. I will share Anne Winter. She's another Texas based author.

[00:39:18] Actually, I'm illustrating her next book called So Many Years. It's about Juneteenth. She approaches it in a way I have not seen before. And she's got other titles at her out. But Anne Winter. Yeah, Jerome Stahl on my pick and it was going to be my pick.

[00:39:34] So her book, Nail Plants of Tree, beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. If you haven't read it, highly recommended. What do you think is the best book to movie adaptation or TV series? Where the Wild Things are is actually my favorite of all time. So I watched the adaptation.

[00:39:52] I love it, but I can't remember if it was like a favorite though. It's different genre. So this is Dune. Well, Dune's good. But the new one, the new one feels it could be as successful as a Star Wars

[00:40:09] franchise. It's just really good storytelling and the visuals are really the compositions really take you in. It just looks like art. It looks great. Yeah. So I'm going to just say this. I don't really love movies that are based on books.

[00:40:26] They're just adaptations aren't really my thing because I love the book. And once you read the book, it's really hard to see a movie. I don't know that nothing is coming to mind as a standout adaptation that I would ever want to watch over reading the book.

[00:40:45] But it's not to say they're not OK. I just it's not my thing really. And that's my answer. I would say mine is Boss Baby. Marla crazy and I want to make sure I'm saying that right too.

[00:40:59] But Marla Marla's Boss Baby, the first film in those tickets, so many films. And this is a series now. But Boss Baby, I feel like we've just done well. I mean, it's the character itself, the Boss Baby.

[00:41:12] Yeah, I feel like that's like they totally expanded that sort of world and story for that movie. So maybe that's the way to do it and be successful with it. Yeah, just not try to make the book, make something based on the book.

[00:41:26] I didn't know Boss Baby was a book, but the film was everything. My son definitely had me watch it in every single episode of every single season of the series multiple times. So yeah, I love that. Boss Baby was the truth. Our game is called Rewriting the Classics.

[00:41:47] Classic is however you define it. Name the one book you wish you would have written. Easy for me. I am a big Shallots Web fan. That was my favorite book growing up and I read it every year.

[00:42:02] And the way he writes it so simply, so plainly, if I could have written, that's what I strive to do. That's what I'd love to do. Mine would be a story day because there's something about

[00:42:14] the character that I just want to protect and not that anything is wrong with it. I don't need to rewrite it for any particular reason, but it's just a character in itself is like someone who I just really want to protect.

[00:42:27] And I'm just like, where is Peter now? What is Peter doing? Is Peter OK? Like, I don't know. Just something about that. Just like I don't know. I can make sure Peter is good. Those are both great. I would say there was another book called Goggles written by

[00:42:40] Ezra Jack Keats and illustrated by him. And I think some of my earliest efforts to write an illustrated book were essentially trying to copy that style and trying to capture that look and such an innocent story of a boy finding and finding something outside and having imaginative play.

[00:43:01] Yeah, so I certainly wish I would have written that or aspire to write something like that. My final question for you all today and we'll start with Antoine. When you're dead and gone and among the ancestors,

[00:43:13] what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you've left behind? Oh, I would love for someone to write that I gave Rear's permission to receive all the best that life has to offer in whatever beautiful way they

[00:43:30] could receive it to feel joy, to feel empathy and to feel love and feel enough love to give love to others while keeping some love for themselves too. Yeah, I think I want people to see the space that we leave in our work

[00:43:47] for readers to put some of their own story, find some of themself. I think we it's an intentional effort we make with every single book is to have space for the words, have space for the art, the space for the story

[00:44:02] we're trying to tell, but also that space for the reader and every reader is different and their approach to every story is different. Their experience with every story is different. As long as they can find that space and live there, I think I'd be happy. And Jerome.

[00:44:19] So I think just hopefully it would be that in all the work that I've done, I've created something beautiful that has in some way enriched the culture or contributed to the culture. That'd be it. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:44:36] Big thank you to Antoine Edie and Jared and Jerome Pumphrey for being here today on Black and Published. Make sure you check out their latest book, The Last Stand out now from Knopf Books for Young Readers. And if you're not following them on the socials, check them out.

[00:44:51] They're all on Twitter and Instagram. Antoine is at Antoine Edie on both platforms. Jared is J. Pumphrey and Jerome is W. J. Pumphrey on both platforms. That's our show for the week. If you like this episode and want more Black and Published, head to our Instagram page.

[00:45:09] It's at Black and Published. And that's B. L. K. and Published. There I've posted a bonus clip for my interview with Jared, Antoine and Jerome about the different avenues they try to tell stories from singing in a country band to writing screenplays.

[00:45:25] Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll highlight y'all next week when our guests will be Willeila Nahanda, author of the memoir, Bless the Blood. Two months out of the transplant ward and I signed a deal

[00:45:40] where I had deliverables and when you go through stem cell transplant to write through that and that fog and that haze, it was a very different experience. So I think I would have waited some and I don't think I would have given as much.

[00:45:52] I think that's one of the most beautiful things about this book is that people get a lot more than they will ever get again from me about me. That's next week on Black and Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace.